macOS 14 Sonoma on Unsupported Macs Thread

[h9826790]

I am really sure it is not worth to install Sonoma on unsupported and even supported macs. I have installed Sonoma on MBA m2 and so find nothing different with Monterey, so it wasn't worth the hassle, imho. Even more so if one installs with patches and so on, which ultimately make installation very unstable sometimes.

I have a spare drive to test run Sonoma, pretty much the same feeling so far.

However, since different people have different needs. And some newer software simply refuse to run in Monterey now (e.g. latest FCP). Therefore, I think still worth to study how to make it work.

Especially for the computer like Mac Pro 5,1. We have PCIe slots to upgrade hardware, which makes the computer still can provide decent performance for today's software.

 

[rehkram]

Just a heads up for those running two Macs, one supported and one unsupported, both plugged into the same external monitor and switching from the supported to the unsupported one using the monitor's OSD (on screen display). For reference, my ext monitor is a Dell U3011

When switching from the supported Mac (Macmini8,1 HDMI to display's HDMI #2) using the OSD to the unsupported Mac (rMBP10,1 via Lightning to display's DisplayPort), which should have been in sleep mode at that point, it actually brings up the boot drive picker, indicating that the target unsupported Mac had crashed while asleep. It boots up and you can log in OK but Bluetooth is very erratic, that "mouse pointer jumping around" thing. Resetting bluetooth via terminal doesn't fix it.

Easy workaround, restart the target unsupported Mac and it boots normally with no bluetooth issues. Specs on my current h/w and s/w are in my Spoiler signature below.

 

[Sven G]

Yesterday, it happened yet another time, on both my MBP11s (one with Sonoma and one with Ventura, both now with OCLP 1.0.1): probably rather randomly, after leaving the system idle for some hours, with default lock screen settings, the computer won’t wake up anymore and must be force shut down; and when starting it again, a kernel panic warning (with white text on black screen) appears, and there is no startup sound. Hibernation is off, so there must be something else responsible for this strange behaviour (both these Macs have an Intel Haswell iGPU, BTW)…

 

[houser]

Re: "You can also switch off Time Machine manually in the GUI" - Not in Sonoma, not possible

Sorry if I might have given old info, have deleted my post.
There is still a switch in Time Machine to switch it off/manually though and I assume you are saying it does not delete snapshots anymore.

Yesterday, it happened yet another time, on both my MBP11s (one with Sonoma and one with Ventura, both now with OCLP 1.0.1): probably rather randomly, after leaving the system idle for some hours, with default lock screen settings, the computer won’t wake up anymore and must be force shut down; and when starting it again, a kernel panic warning (with white text on black screen) appears, and there is no startup sound. Hibernation is off, so there must be something else responsible for this strange behaviour (both these Macs have an Intel Haswell iGPU, BTW)…

Seeing the same. My workaround is to manually sleep the computers rather than let it fall asleep which so far appears to be a stable solution.

 

[davidlv]

Sorry if I might have given old info, have deleted my post.
There is still a switch in Time Machine to switch it off/manually though and I assume you are saying it does not delete snapshots anymore.

Seeing the same. My workaround is to manually sleep the computers rather than let it fall asleep which so far appears to be a stable solution.

Are you running Sonoma? See the attached screenshot taken from my M2 MBA Sonoma 14.0, no switch available to turn it off.

 

[makj]

Hi makj, I have the same computer as you. I'm running Ventura 13.6. I'm hesitant to move to Sonoma. Did you encounter any problems during installation or afterward?
Thank you for your answer

​

No problem but safe mode booting and the problem described in the quote below, but that one is applicable to all versions of macOS+OCLP. That is per my usage pattern, others may have found problems that I haven't or they do not bother me. There are few differences between Ventura and Sonoma, the most notable I have found are the desktop widgets and new wallpapers. However, my advice is that you should keep Ventura and just add an additional APFS volume for Sonoma. Then you may move your apps and settings using the Migration assistant (do not migrate during install). You may also create a "My Files" volume for your user files so that that you can share them between different installations. I also maintain a natively supported Catalina installation, in case something goes wrong with the OCLP installations.

Everything works fine on my iMac 27" Late 2013 (14,2), Nvidia GEForce GT 755M. The only exception is an ancient bug in the OCLP root patches, which suspect only occurs for Nvidia Kepler graphics. I have had this problem with every version of OCLP, with Monterey, Ventura and also Sonoma. I'm currently running OCLP 0.6.9n Build 2023-08-08 and Ventura 13.5.1.
The problem is with Speedtest, Acrobat Reader and my Bank Security app with root patches installed and I believe the problems have the same root cause.
When doing a fresh install of Speedtest it crashes on the first run. Acrobat Reader hangs on the first run and must be force quitted. The Bank app cannot login to sites that display warning or informational text boxes.
For the problem with Speedtest and Acrobat Reader the work-around is to boot into Safe mode and perform virgin runs there. After that the apps also work in Normal mode.
Has any one else observed this peculiar behaviour?
The problem can easily be reproduced by completely uninstalling Speedtest or Acrobat Reader using the AppCleaner app and then emptying the Bin. After reinstalling the apps the problem occurs. I'm attaching screen shots of som problem windows.

 

[Lounge Deluxe]

Yesterday, it happened yet another time, on both my MBP11s (one with Sonoma and one with Ventura, both now with OCLP 1.0.1): probably rather randomly, after leaving the system idle for some hours, with default lock screen settings, the computer won’t wake up anymore and must be force shut down; and when starting it again, a kernel panic warning (with white text on black screen) appears, and there is no startup sound. Hibernation is off, so there must be something else responsible for this strange behaviour (both these Macs have an Intel Haswell iGPU, BTW)…

My Mbp 11,3 (late 2014) running Sonoma and OCLP 1.0.1 suffers from exactly the same issue, it may be model specific as my MacMini 6,1 (late 2012) running same MacOS does not suffer from it.

 

[nicoletta]

No problem but safe mode booting and the problem described in the quote below, but that one is applicable to all versions of macOS+OCLP. That is per my usage pattern, others may have found problems that I haven't or they do not bother me. There are few differences between Ventura and Sonoma, the most notable I have found are the desktop widgets and new wallpapers. However, my advice is that you should keep Ventura and just add an additional APFS volume for Sonoma. Then you may move your apps and settings using the Migration assistant (do not migrate during install). You may also create a "My Files" volume for your user files so that that you can share them between different installations. I also maintain a natively supported Catalina installation, in case something goes wrong with the OCLP installations.

Thank you very much for your response and your advice. Maybe I'll follow your advice to install Sonoma on another hard drive. I assume you took a fast disc? Which hard drive are you using and connected to which port on the iMac?

 

[houser]

Are you running Sonoma? See the attached screenshot taken from my M2 MBA Sonoma 14.0, no switch available to turn it off.

I am currently running Sonoma 14.1b3 on some computers, yes. If you click options there, you get a backup frequency switch that can be set to manually. However, that setting does not appear to delete the snapshots AFAIK.

 

[INK1]

Yesterday, it happened yet another time, on both my MBP11s (one with Sonoma and one with Ventura, both now with OCLP 1.0.1): probably rather randomly, after leaving the system idle for some hours, with default lock screen settings, the computer won’t wake up anymore and must be force shut down; and when starting it again, a kernel panic warning (with white text on black screen) appears, and there is no startup sound. Hibernation is off, so there must be something else responsible for this strange behaviour (both these Macs have an Intel Haswell iGPU, BTW)…

Same problem with my MBP11,5. No difference if I let it fall asleep og manually do it.

 

[davidlv]

I am currently running Sonoma 14.1b3 on some computers, yes. If you click options there, you get a backup frequency switch that can be set to manually. However, that setting does not appear to delete the snapshots AFAIK.

I think you have a different system installed. You are obviously seeing stuff that doesn't exist on my computers running Sonoma 14.0. For example, you said "If you click options there", but there are no "Options" visible and no way to scroll down further. What I showed in that screenshot is all there is. No options at all.
On my iMac, 2.45GB snapshots get populated regularly. I have to boot into Venyura on an external disk and use disk utility to delete those large snapshots.
Running the terminal code shown below doesn't delete them, even after running Onyx with it set to delete APFS snapshots.

Code: sudo tmutil thinLocalSnapshots / 10000000000 4

 

[internetzel]

Same problem with my MBP11,5. No difference if I let it fall asleep og manually do it.

One thing that maybe help is switching off the wake on LAN feature. Wake on LAN will cause the Mac to periodically "dark wake" for some seconds, refreshing the LAN and WLAN connections.
Maybe the Mac crashes during dark wake - but without dark wakes it would probably crash upon waking it up manually...

 

[davidlv]

One thing that maybe help is switching off the wake on LAN feature. Wake on LAN will cause the Mac to periodically "dark wake" for some seconds, refreshing the LAN and WLAN connections.
Maybe the Mac crashes during dark wake - but without dark wakes it would probably crash upon waking it up manually...

This pmset option may help;
sudo pmset -b tcpkeepalive 0
--This command may produce a warning saying some features may not work properly. This is fine, it simply disables Internet access during sleep. This is the same as disabling "PowerNap" Apple's badly implemented (demented?) attempt to have apps update themselves during sleep behind the users back.
I found this command in a Japanese text file related to sleep and hibernation. I have used it for years and never seen any related issues, on both laptops and desktop computers.

 

[houser]

I think you have a different system installed. You are obviously seeing stuff that doesn't exist on my computers running Sonoma 14.0. For example, you said "If you click options there", but there are no "Options" visible and no way to scroll down further. What I showed in that screenshot is all there is. No options at all.
On my iMac, 2.45GB snapshots get populated regularly. I have to boot into Venyura on an external disk and use disk utility to delete those large snapshots.
Running the terminal code shown below doesn't delete them, even after running Onyx with it set to delete APFS snapshots.

Code: sudo tmutil thinLocalSnapshots / 10000000000 4

Yes, we are seeing different things. For the purpose of this discussion I tried setting it to manually and it does not appeaper to delete the snapshots anymore, so this does not appear to help for you with that regardless.
The snapshots get big if you delete large files regularly, as those big files become part of the snapshots but should be purged every 24 hours.
You should still be able to delete them from disk utility if needed by selecting the volume in the container.
Thathere should give you a "hide/show APFS snapshots" At least on my system Sonoma 14.1b3 there is.

 

[makj]

Thank you very much for your response and your advice. Maybe I'll follow your advice to install Sonoma on another hard drive. I assume you took a fast disc? Which hard drive are you using and connected to which port on the iMac?

You don´t need an additional drive unless running out of space on the main drive. Personally I have a 1.12 TB Fusion drive with oceans of space. The clever thing with the APFS file system is that, when needed, you simply add an additional volume to the main drive container using Disk Utility. APFS allocates space dynamically to each volume so there is no need to repartition the drive. Also you may share files and apps between the volumes. Then when scrapping an old installation you logout from the Apple ID and deletes the APFS volume.

 

[MacNB2]

And some newer software simply refuse to run in Monterey now (e.g. latest FCP). Therefore, I think still worth to study how to make it work.

I’m sure you will let us know if you work out how to enable H/W Acceleration of the New FCP on Sonoma 😉

 

[nicoletta]

You don´t need an additional drive unless running out of space on the main drive. Personally I have a 1.12 TB Fusion drive with oceans of space. The clever thing with the APFS file system is that, when needed, you simply add an additional volume to the main drive container using Disk Utility. APFS allocates space dynamically to each volume so there is no need to repartition the drive. Also you may share files and apps between the volumes. Then when scrapping an old installation you logout from the Apple ID and deletes the APFS volume.

Thanks again for these explanations. I actually only have a little space left on my internal drive (around 200 GB).
Sharing documents and applications between different volumes is indeed interesting but some applications need elements that are in the system folder to work right? If I run them from another system, they might not work?

 

[flyproductions]

Today I downloaded OCLP from the well-known location and installed it on my cMac Pro 5.1 2010.
After the reboot & postinstall, I was surprised about the color display on my Nvidia 680 GTX, which had been working normally until recently.

Installed Sonoma on a cMP 5,1 Single CPU yesterday, using OCLP, latest version which is 1.0.1.
For GPU, i am using a ASUS Radeon RX 570, 4 GB with dual DVI-outputs. Connected to them a 30" Cinema HD and a small 20", also Apple Aluminium. OCLP Polaris Post Install Patch installed.

Most things work. But i still have similar massive color-distortion-issues:
Anything that should be blue ist displayed in bright orange! Looks like an absolute mess. So i went trough all the (far from intuitive) new settings, but could not find anything.

Is this a problem with the GPU, DVI in general, the OCLP patcher or any of the settings, i might have missed?

I then re-installed the patcher from August 23rd. and now the color reproduction is correct.

I'm afraid, it wouldn't make any sense to try any pre 1.0 version of OCLP nowadays?

By the way: BT (original module) still doesn't work properly. I can activate it, it waits briefly for BT devices, finds nothing and switches off automatically after seconds.

Same for me with the 5,1 bluetooth-module upgraded to 4.0

Any known soutions for the problems, described above?

 

[h9826790]

Most things work. But i still have similar massive color-distortion-issues:
Anything that should be blue ist displayed in bright orange! Looks like an absolute mess. So i went trough all the (far from intuitive) new settings, but could not find anything.

Change the display setting to 8bit colour. BetterDisplay can do that easily.

Installed Sonoma on a cMP 5,1 Single CPU yesterday, using OCLP, latest version which is 1.0.1.
For GPU, i am using a ASUS Radeon RX 570, 4 GB with dual DVI-outputs. Connected to them a 30" Cinema HD and a small 20", also Apple Aluminium. OCLP Polaris Post Install Patch installed.

May I know if H264/HEVC HWAccel works on your cMP? (OCLP Sonoma with RX570)

 

[flyproductions]

Change the display setting to 8bit colour. BetterDisplay can do that easily.

Sorry, if the question is very silly, but where can this setting be made? The only color-option i was able to find in the settings themselfs was chosing a different profile. But chossing any other profile did not result in any visible changes.

May I know if H264/HEVC HWAccel works on your cMP? (OCLP Sonoma with RX570)

I will have a look at this!

 

[h9826790]

Sorry, if the question is very silly, but where can this setting be made? The only color-option i was able to find in the settings themselfs was chosing a different profile. But chossing any other profile did not result in any visible changes.

Use BetterDisplay (free version is good enough) should be easier

From your description, most likely this is what you see now.

And the correct setting for you should be

 

[flyproductions]

May I know if H264/HEVC HWAccel works on your cMP? (OCLP Sonoma with RX570)

Yes! Seems to work for both!

Also a Geekbench Metal-run shows some even "a bit better as expected" result. Only the Unigine-apps don't work that well anymore. Did Sonoma drop OpenGL/-CL support in general?

...and further good news: The color-problem somehow "solved" itself by running the patcher again and rebooting.

Even 32 Gig memory modules work with the usual edits to the config.plist.

Only thing still not working ist BT.

 

[h9826790]

Yes! Seems to work for both!

View attachment 2295356

Also a Geekbench Metal-run shows some even "a bit better as expected" result. Only the Unigine-apps don't work that well anymore. Did Sonoma drop OpenGL/-CL support in general?

...and further good news: The color-problem somehow "solved" itself by running the patcher again and rebooting.

Even 32 Gig memory modules work with the usual edits to the config.plist.

Only thing still not working ist BT.

Thanks, that means the "no HWAccel" most likely is really the Vega driver's issue. Can't be fixed easily by modifying the OC config.

Yeah, GB Metal works better than I expect, almost 10% better than in Monterey, may be due to newer API has better efficiency.

I just tested Unigine Heaven. It actually works. Or you mean the performance dropped? In my case, the score still more or less the same, but I can clearly see that the screen isn't that smooth (despite the FPS still very high).

 

[makj]

Thanks again for these explanations. I actually only have a little space left on my internal drive (around 200 GB).
Sharing documents and applications between different volumes is indeed interesting but some applications need elements that are in the system folder to work right? If I run them from another system, they might not work?

To free up space perhaps you could move your user files to an external drive or store them in a cloud service.
My Sonoma uses 120 GB, Ventura 63 GB and Catalina 56 GB.
macOS .app-files are basically self-contained directory structures. Some apps need files in addition to that and they will then be created at the first run. If you you then delete an app using e.g. AppCleaner you must be careful so that you don't delete files used by other installations. If you have disk space it is easiest to have one instance of an app for every installation.

 

[deeveedee]

I´m on Monterey, even on my native supported Ventura/Sonoma macs. Really can´t see a difference. And I HATE so much that System Preferences and other stuff.

OT: totally agree, but I'm warming up to Ventura. 13.6 is working very well in a test volume on my MBP6,2 patched with OCLP 1.0.1 Release. Monterey is still my favorite, but I currently see no reason not to upgrade to Ventura (for me). And Wi-Fi is natively supported with no root patches. Oh, and Ventura still runs latest Xcode.

EDIT: I am currently booting the following on my MBP6,2, each in its own APFS volume (note that for my testing, OCLP post-install patch versions do NOT have to be the same on each APFS volume). My Open Core EFI is generated with OCLP 1.0.1 (Release):

1. Big Sur patched with OCLP 0.6.8 (Release)
2. Monterey patched with OCLP 0.6.8 (Release)
3. Ventura 13.5 patched with OCLP 0.6.8 (Release)
4. Ventura 13.6 patched with OCLP 1.0.1 (Release)
5. Sonoma 14.0 (Release) patched with OCLP 0.6.9 (latest Beta). Still in the process of securely creating a new test volume for Sonoma testing with OCLP 1.0.1